Even before Roger Waters appeared on stage at Desert Trip it felt likes something special was brewing for this final show of the weekend here.

Low sounds of vaguely industrial noise thrummed from speakers on the stage and around the field. The massive video screens above the stage showed a dark moonscape -- surely you can figure out why.

A glowing orb floated closer through the galaxy on the screens. A train roared seemingly through the field, a product of the incredibly realistic surround sound the Pink Floyd bassist and singer had installed for the show.

And only then did the show begin, first with the floating, gentle soundscape of "Breathe," then with "Set The Controls For The Heart of the Sun," the first two songs in two-and-a-half hours of music and spectacle -- and a good deal of political advocacy, too.

Was it the best set of the weekend of this unprecedented gathering of rock and roll titans? The answer to that depends on where your rock and roll heart lies. The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney delivered terrific shows the spanned their careers in rock, though in terms of production theirs were much more traditional than Waters' was.

The Who and Neil Young both rocked as hard as they have for years. Only Bob Dylan, whose deliberately opaque style undoubtedly keeps a distance between performer and fans wouldn't really have an argument for best set of the weekend, and even there, surely some Dylan heads would beg to differ.

Waters thrilled all the senses, his visuals and acoustics dazzling throughout the night, from the opening numbers to other early numbers including "Time," which featured sizzling guitar and lovely backing vocals by Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of the band Lucius, and "Money," the walking bass line set against a wailing sax solo wonderful accents to an iconic song of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album.

A bit later, "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" were huge hits with the crowd, the latter featuring one of the wounded war veterans with whom Waters has worked in recent years on lead guitar, a nice spotlight for a truly good cause.

Before dipping into the "Animals" album four large smokestacks rose from the top of the stage, their tops glowing white like plumes that floated into the dark from them, the video backdrop now a massive factory, the overall look a recreation of that record's cover art.

"Animals" offered up a run of songs from that 1977 album though fans will mostly be talking about only one, "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" which delivered a long and eviscerating critique of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. From the opening lyrics -- "Big man, pig man / Ha ha charade you are" -- to the visuals on screen that portrayed Trump in vivid Warhol-esque pop art renderings, some of them bordering on obscene, Waters used the number to make perfectly clear how dangerous he sees the prospect of a Trump presidency.

By the end of the song he'd brought out his trademark floating pig, a huge red inflatable porker on which were written critiques such as "(Bleep) Trump and his wall," and "Trump is a lying, racist, sexist pig." On the massive video screen quotes from Trump that many have found offensive scrolled past until a final screen stopped on "Trump is a pig."

A handful of songs from Pink Floyd's album "The Wall," a warning against oppressive governmental regimes, followed, with highlights such as "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2," during which Waters brought a troupe of young kids on stage dressed in T-shirts that read "Tear down the wall" in Spanish. "Mother," a gentler number from that album followed, another lovely highlight thanks to the blending of Waters' voice with those of the Lucius singers.

Before his encore Waters dipped back into politics of a different nature, reading a poem he'd written in 2004 when President George W. Bush was in the midst of his war-making in Iraq, and after that, commenting on his support for college students and others who advocating for a Palestinian state and the removal of Jewish settlements from some of the land in that region.

You had to wonder how some of those positions went down with this mostly older demographic but there was plenty of applause in response to his comments and any empty seats were probably due to the lateness of the hour on a work and school night.

An encore brought Waters' night and the first of two Desert Trip weekends to a close. "Vera," a lesser known track from "The Wall" arrived in mostly acoustic fashion, followed by "Is There Anybody Out There?" and "Comfortably Numb," a condition which Waters, at 73, remains anything but.

Where Waters offered a more cerebral style of rock and roll, the Who, playing before him on Sunday, provided that primal force that the music at its most powerful delivers.

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